ANTWERP — U.S. homeland security chief Kristi Noem arrived at the port of Antwerp on Wednesday to pledge American support toward smashing narco gangs, as drug-fueled violence plagues Belgium.
U.S. President Donald Trump is taking drastic international action to target cartels — including a controversial strike that blew up an alleged Venezuelan drug boat — and designated them as foreign terrorist organizations immediately after taking office.
“Ports here, like this one, are a crime target for foreign terrorist organizations,” Noem said during a press conference following a meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever. “The U.S. understands that we need to be aggressive in fighting these organizations and we want to partner with you in an even greater way to do so into the future.”
The port of Antwerp is one of Europe’s main gateways for illicit drug shipments, and Noem and De Wever were on site to discuss boosting cooperation between Belgium and the U.S. in the fight against narcotics trafficking.
Noem, a longtime conservative ally of Trump, noted that the collaborative action will involve sharing data and security information, and dealing with shipping companies.
Talking to media ahead of the meeting, De Wever said the U.S. side requested the meeting, and he saw it “as a sign of appreciation for years of [his] global lobbying.”
“I think Europe should focus a lot more on European cooperation on one hand, and on cooperation with our friends in the United States in order to crush the business model of organized crime. We must do this because drug criminals know no borders at all,” said De Wever, a Flemish nationalist who spent more than ten years as mayor of Antwerp before becoming Belgian prime minister.
Both the U.S. and Belgium have faced an epidemic of drug trafficking and narcotics-related violence, and authorities have struggled to get to grips with the problem.
The Belgian port city of Antwerp, which in the first quarter of 2025 overtook Rotterdam in container output, has witnessed a stark increase in drug-related shootings and explosions amid the surging drug traffic.
Belgian authorities seized a record 121 metric tons of cocaine at the port in 2023, according to customs statistics released by police.
Drug violence has gripped Brussels too, culminating in about 60 shootings this year alone. The government is currently mulling deploying soldiers on the streets by the end of the year to deter criminals.
Across the Atlantic, the U.S. has been struggling with fentanyl, a synthetic drug estimated to be 50 times stronger than heroin. Former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned in 2023 that Europe will soon have to deal with the same problem.
According to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 80,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2024, a significant decrease from the 110,000 deaths recorded the previous year.
“There’s a plague of fentanyl traffic that is spreading around the world,” said Noem, adding that “we need to stop it and work together so that we have the ability to use our experience in America to help Europe.”
She then switched out of her high heels to go inside a shipping container to inspect Belgium’s new drug-scanning technology, before accompanying De Wever on a helicopter tour around the port.
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